


Game of Thrones, the Wagner remix

by ars_belli



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV), The Princess and the Queen & The Rogue Prince - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Blood Kink, F/M, House Lannister, Kingsguard issues, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rewrite, pre-The Dance of the Dragons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/pseuds/ars_belli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various scenes inspired by arias from Wagner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Notung! Notung! Neidliches Schwert!

SIEGFRIED:  
Notung! Notung!  
Neidliches Schwert!  
Was musstest du zerspringen?  
Zu Spreu nun schuf ich  
die scharfe Pracht,  
im Tiegel brat' ich die Späne.  
  
Einst färbte Blut  
dein falbes Blau;  
sein rotes Rieseln  
rötete dich:  
kalt lachtest du da,  
das warme lecktest du kühl!  
  
Warst du entzwei,  
ich zwang dich zu ganz;  
kein Schlag soll nun dich mehr zerschlagen.  
…  
nun lacht ihm sein heller Schein,  
seine Schärfe schneidet ihm hart.  
  
Tot lagst du  
in Trümmern dort,  
jetzt leuchtest du trotzig und hehr.  
Zeige den Schächern  
nun deinen Schein!  | SIEGFRIED:  
Notung! Notung!  
Sword of my need!  
What mighty blow once broke you?  
I've filed to splinters  
your shining steel;  
the fire has melted and fused them.  
  
Your steely blue  
once flowed with blood;  
its ruddy trickling  
reddened my blade;  
cold laughter you gave,  
the warm blood cooled on your heart!  
  
Snapped into two,  
once more you are whole;  
no stroke again shall ever smash you.  
…  
for me now you laugh and shine,  
and your gleaming edge will be keen.  
  
You lay there  
so cold and dead,  
but shine now defiant and fair.  
Let every traitor  
quail at your gleam!   
---|---  
  
She would have to splinter him apart. Bending muscle and bone to her will, firing his heart and his mind into molten gold; that might save her brother. What use was the creature he was now: weapon-less, honour-less, leaderless? The Lannisters had given up a god and the Starks had given them a corpse. Yet the Seven always rose anew: could she not resurrect her twin from his ashes too?  
"Keys?" her brother asked.  
Cersei blinked, shook herself. She twisted a key which no woman had held before into a lock which guarded a room few knights had ever seen. Jaime pressed his palm against the wood, shoving open the heavy door. Out of habit he entered before her, scanning the room, resting the spectre of his hand upon the hilt of an absent sword. She felt a pang of grief. Her brother whistled.  
"Well, _fuck me_."  
She might have made a jape at that, once. Had she only heard her twin's voice: not inhaled his second shadow of dirt and unwashed man; nor seen the torn peasant's rags behind which even his bones shrank in embarassment; nor pressed her palm to his skin, as dry and grimy and feverishly hot as papyrus reed newly plucked from a Dornish mud-flat. Now the jest was all on her. Had she not shredded the peace terms Robb Stark had sent? In those stolen days when she had ruled the Small Council, had she not decided that the North was too high a ransom for her twin? Had she not cursed the Starks into her pillows, raging that if she would never see her brother alive again, then let the Seven have the mercy to make Sansa Stark taste the same despair? The taste of victory had soured swiftly in her throat with her twin missing. _Perhaps he still is_ —but no, he had lost a hand, not a head. Had his suffering wrought any changes to her other half, she could remove the impurities in time, restore her twin to his former glory. Jaime interrupted her thoughts.  
"I feel even filthier in the midst of this," her brother claimed.  
His silhouette made a slow pivot, stump waving around the wide, white room. The arms mounted on the walls were so well-polished that the light reflecting from them became a weapon itself. The evening's dying sun bestowed upon the whitewashed walls the yellow heat of a forge. Cersei lingered on the threshold until her eyes adjusted to the glare. The transition stripped away the small mercies. The wind snatched at his hair, leaving glints of brightness like the gold ore in the Rock's caverns, in place of their crown of molten gold. The sunset detailed his frame with years'-old clothes gaping over the air where his perfect contours had been, for all that his outline showed the bones common to them both. She was broad where maids' shoulders ought to be slim and narrow where their hips ought to be wide and so fierce that even the Stranger did not want her, Robert had laughed once. She had laughed too, cradling their black-haired, mewling heir in her arms, believing that she would never have to hear 'Lyanna' pour from his mouth again. A bitter laugh burst from her lips. Jaime bowed mockingly, holding out his arms. She walked over to join her brother, her lover, the man she had waited more than twenty years to revenge. He would shine to rival the room when she was done. 

Cersei found her twin at the window. Jaime stared sightlessly over the ocean. She pressed close into his back, wrapping herself around him, chin settled comfortably on his shoulder. For a while they revelled in nothing more important than unity after so long apart, as the wind vainly searched for crevices between their bodies. Cersei felt her skirts billow around her and traced memories of Casterly Rock along his arms.  
"The waves here do not know our words," Jaime remarked.  
She smiled into his neck. The water below slapped against the beach as uselessly as the eponymous maiden fair battling her bear. At home the ocean locked itself in perpetual war with the cliffs, while generations of Lannisters listened to the sea repeat _Hear me roar!_ Jaime's melancholy posture posed the question for him. _How long since we have been home, sister?_  
"Too long, as always," she said.  
"Tommen's age and nine months, you mean."  
Something of his old self gleamed through the dirt. Cersei dared to slide her hands to his wrist and the bandages at the base of his stump. What muscles he had left tensed, shifting the configuration of their bodies. To her annoyance, she could not read the gesture: pain, or shame, or both? She moved her hands to the safer territory of his waist instead.  
"What happened, afterwards?" she asked.  
He shrugged at her morbid curiosity.  
"I bled all over Lady Stark's shoes."  
Shame, then. The glib remark had been her twin's sword and shield from the day that she had taught him to talk.  
"At least I didn't scream. I wouldn't…give them the satisfaction. I did give Lady Stoneheart and that grey old cunt Karstark a piece of my mind. I tried turning them at each other's throats while their king was away."  
"So we have you to thank for splintering the Young Wolf's alliance? You're not completely useless, then."  
She balanced on her toes and darted the barest press of her lips against his cheekbone, voice as light as the kiss. His head lifted slightly, beard scraping against her temples.  
"I'll wager a hundred dragons that Father says the same thing! 'Lannisters, Lannisters don't act like fools,'" he rasped.  
She forced a laugh. Father had always been markedly more amusing when safely absent.  
"I'm sure that I can deflect his ire in my direction."  
"Seven Hells, Cersei, he'll be furious enough to breathe wildfire! 'Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Warden of the East, acting Warden of the West, acting Shield of Lannisport, heir to Casterly Rock,'" he mocked.  
He had missed some titles: _Kingslayer, Oathbreaker, the man without honour._ Not even Father was cruel enough to call him that. _Joffrey might._ In which case Joff ought to be glad that no amount of goading would grow Jaime a new sword-hand.  
"I can't even conquer a three-course dinner."  
"Have you forgotten? Pens, swords, relative value…"  
It had been on the tip of her tongue to jest that he could still conquer her. Jaime chuckled. Had her expression said it after all?  
"I can't wield a pen with the skill to balance Casterly's books. My skills are on the battlefield, not the command tent nor the Small Council. In our lord father's eyes, I am now _useless_."  
He choked on the last word. In the space of his indrawn breath he spun, eyes fixed on her face. _And in yours?_  
"Why should I answer that?" she snapped.  
She answered it anyway. The force of the blow made his neck twist. Her wedding ring drew a line of blood along his cheekbone. He was silent. Whether for a long time or a single moment that drew itself out like the encroaching shadows on his face, the queen did not know. Finally her brother stirred.  
"You know what I want, don't you?"  
 _Us, together. Our son king in Westeros and our daughter princess in Dorne and our father Hand. Our union, our legacy, ever-living!_ Pointless question! When had their ambitions ever diverged?  
"No-one cares what you want, brother."  
The cut flickered in his eyes, hurt bleeding into fury. Anger had always stoked hotter than sympathy, melted him faster. Would he push her away when she tore off his rags and raked her nails into the hollows of his ribs? Would he laugh and pull her closer? Cersei balled her hands into fists.  
"No-one cares what either of us want unless it aligns with Father's wishes," she reiterated.  
He slumped against the wall. She dislodged his arm and stepped away.  
"We've never lied to each other. Why should I start now? Did you expect me to pour honeyed words into your ears and kiss everything better?" she snapped. "The entire court is after our blood!"  
"Perhaps the entire court should thank you! Under the old rules, they would have had to suffer me in silence," her brother remarked softly. "Had Joff not had his little fit of pique and dismissed Ser Barristan—"  
Had his courage gushed out with his blood during his maiming? Was it fear of her rage that made him check his own?  
"Selmy wanted your head on a spike!" she spat. "He never trusted you, from the moment that cloak settled on your shoulders."  
Her barb hit its mark flawlessly. Jaime flinched. The darkness between his parted lips was home to a hundred monsters. Burned Hands; raped queens; half-woken whispers of _Darry, we are sworn to protect the queen as well_ and _Oswald, take me with you—Rhaegar will not listen,_ and _Arthur, Elia, Aerys will kill her_ ; and Aerys himself, of course, enough blood to turn his Kingsguard cloak to Lannister crimson. But all his nightmares were of dead things; surely Jaime feared no-one living, not even now. She found herself staring at where his sword hand ought to have been. She wrenched her eyes to the tight line of his mouth and muscles in his jaw.  
"It's an interesting puzzle, isn't it? Dismiss the Lord Commander and the king appears a nepotist and usurper without Selmy's approval. Retain the Lord Commander and Selmy never has the opportunity to reinforce the king's legitimacy because he has no choice but to serve for life."  
"And this one?" he murmured.  
"Is that all you want? A pat on the head from Father and back to being a glorified steward? 'Your Grace, might I taste that wine for you?' 'Your Grace, shall I find you a few whores?' 'Might I carry you to the privy and hold the royal cock while you take a piss?'"  
"I thought that was the Hand's job, not his sworn swords'" Jaime japed, though his jaw stayed iron.  
That had been Robert's Kingsguard, not Joffrey's. Robert. His corpse had had two years to rot and yet his ghost sat on every Small Council and his breath soured even the sweetest Arbor gold and his voice moaned _Lyanna_ into Lancel's ear whenever she had mouthed _my brother_ against his white armour.  
"To think there was a time when we imagined killing the king would solve everything," she mused.  
It nearly had once: if he had only proclaimed their father to be Aerys' successor! Jaime's stump brushed her cheek. She recoiled. As did he, arm bashing reflexively against the wall.  
" _Sister_."  
The growl bubbled up through a swallowed cry of pain. The tears laying siege to his eyes made then gleam, cat-like and gold-flecked. It would be no effort at all to cup his cheeks and kiss him into silence and curl him into her arms. Instead she drew back her hand and hit him again.

The fever dreams had all been so vivid. Every night he was blind instead of maimed; dazzled by the vision of her curled into his white cloak in her empty bed. _Fuck me, Jaime, my other half, my brave brother, stay with me, come inside me…_ , a thousand obscenities swallowed by their lips, prayers murmured against each other's skin and into their golden hair, promises wrung from every moan of agony and gasp of desire. A different fantasy every night, every one a hopeless daydream of the morrow. And as the nights had grown colder and longer and darker, so had the dreams. None of them had been like this. His beard proved no cushion to her blows, her fingers knotting viciously in his mane to prevent him from dodging the attacks, every vain twist of his body flaunting the silvery glint of another scar. A cruel jape of the favourite tactic which he could no longer use with only a single hand, its fingers striking against flesh which cushioned the sharp elegance of her bones more than he had remembered. In his dreams he always had two hands, always held her down instead of suffering the weight of her body above his. Ever since they were children he could have held her easily. Jaime batted away the thought, caught at her hair, clung to her scent. His teeth marked skin in whose sweat tugged the sinister undercurrent of wine, of Robert.

The memory propelled Jaime back into the royal bed, banished to the edge by the slumbering mass of the king—hardly the vision spun to the commoners, surely the cuckold and the queen rutting in the king's bed, its owner passed out on the floor—a precarious fuck forever on the edge of falling, faces pressed to stifle their moans into sheets slippery with silk and pillows sour with the odours of wine and unwashed monarch and essence of lavender. He surfaced from the memory like a half-drowned man. Perhaps he was still drowning, drowning in her, less certain with every gasped curse and scrambling clutch whether they were fighting or fucking. Her fingernails drew blood the length of his back, stilling him enough for his sister to force him into her. The moment he was inside the world tilted on its axis. The effortless, familiar _right_ of it made him dizzy, left him fainting in Brienne's arms, tainted by the shame of his weakness and perhaps for other things too; but the memory splintered and shattered with every gasp of _Jaime_ from his sister's lips, fierce and desperate enough to match their coupling. No, the world was not tilting madly awry but righting itself: everywhere measured with respect to that empty, wet void they strove together to fill and time calibrated only by the cant of his hips to the metronome of _Jaime, Jaime, Jaime_. Never _Kingslayer_ , not to her, no more than he called her _Your Grace_. Eye to eye, mouth in mouth, skin against skin; what use were mere titles, what meaning in describing the disparate halves of a unified whole?  
"Sweet sister," he groaned, the words dragged from his lips as she came, while he shuddered in ecstasy himself. Only after she moaned against him a second time did he utter the syllables trapped between mind and tongue for so long, a name he had dared not even think to himself lest his longing form whispers of its own.  
"Cersei."

Her name lingered on his tongue. Even the thump of his heart echoed the two syllables, pumping wildfire through his arteries. They had a night, a small eternity together. The realisation made him light-headed. He waited for her urgent whispers: that they had been foolish, their nakedness an unnecessary risk; that he would be missed from his post outside her door; that Robert might stagger in at any time, or worse, Selmy would have need of him. Instead some Lannister laughed in his head. _When it's done, you'll feel a lord yourself!_ Not his father, that was certain. Gerion, perhaps, or the ever-laughing Tygett; they might have yielded to a nephew's stammered interrogations. Would that Jaime had asked less about anatomy and more about afterwards! Would that Tyg had not died of a cough, nor Gerion gone adventuring and never come back… _Fool's errand!_ his father had said, but he pushed that voice away too: surely he would hear worse in the morning. _I need you to be the man you were always meant to be_ , a calloused hand on his cheek, all the more terrifying for its alien familiarity, _Not tomorrow, not next year_ , but two years had passed in worthlessness. _Seven Hells…_  
"Jaime?"  
Fingertips warm at his cheek. Gentle, almost, were it not for the threat of her nails. _Never leave your lady wife bored by your bed! Unless my young lion would prefer wearing horns to a mane?_ Jaime ignored the uncle in his head in favour of the sister in his arms. His gaze wandered lazily to hers, over the Meereenese knot of their limbs, the bruises which he had kissed into her flesh, all left-handed marks now. _Robert_ , snickered his conscience, _He marked her too_. Jaime shifted his weight against the wall, the rough stucco scraping against his shoulder blades. Had he left dirt on it? Dirt and blood? He tried to drag out a memory of them being this careless before. _While Robert lived, no-one suspected. Except Jon Arryn and poor, dead Ned._  
"Tell me," Cersei murmured, words traced by his fingers along her lip.  
But he merely shook his head. He had never been any good at lying to her. Loose strands of her hair danced in his exhaled sigh. A phantom smile lingered on her lips. Sympathy, he hoped. But still, the question remained. What was he to do?  
"Not interested in my counsel, I see."  
Was that a pout, or had the petulance been all tone?  
"Why should I want your mouth for words, sister?" he laughed. "You give those to anyone."  
One hand still on his cheek, she curled the other into the nape of his neck. Edges pricked his skin, her nails drawing the shadows of the Iron Throne against his back.  
"Tell me what you do want then, dearest brother."  
His smile faded like the last autumn sunlight.  
"I do not know. What does a sworn sword without a sword arm want? What does he do?"  
The frown rested too lightly on her brows.  
"You're no mere sworn sword! Or do you mean to leave the Kingsguard? If you wish to be Father's castellan at the Rock—"  
"—Then you had best discover what sorcery Father used to sway me!"  
Somehow the jape failed to amuse him. He arched an eyebrow.  
"Unless you will be my champion at the Small Council?"  
Longing plucked at his heart. He had always been her sword arm. Never again would he ride into the mêlée, never crown her as his queen of love and beauty, never defend her with more than the threat of his once-bloodied white cloak. One person in two bodies; yet he had always been the sword and she the shield; one to fight with sword and lance, the other with smiles and words. His sister's lips toyed with the pretence of a smile, discarding it for a surer weapon.  
"Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, championed by a fair maid? Must I wear your armour?" she teased.  
"Were you to wear my armour, I fear that I might have to wear your dress."  
Her turn to raise an eyebrow.  
"I _distinctly_ recall a time when you liked wearing my dresses."  
Not so long ago. He felt the blood rush to his face. She had crawled up her own skirts and planted kisses up his thighs, frustratingly gentle. The corset had cheated him of the air from his lungs; or had that been the sight of her curls tumbling gold across his white armour and the cold pressure of his own gauntlets bruising his hips?  
"When we were _nine_!" he protested.  
Until they were nine; not merely inseparable but indistinguishable. Even now he did not know which words had brought tears to his eyes: the proclamation that he would squire at Crakehall, Lord Tywin's hands resting proudly on Cersei's mailed shoulders; or the whisper of triumph as she placed the tourney crown amidst her brother's pinned and scented curls.  
"And we giggled uncontrollably at all the maesters because they never noticed the exchange—"  
Their mother had, surely. He had not dreamed of Joanna's smile when his letters had been clumsier than his sister's, his reading slower, his reactions faster. They had been four when she had died, hoarding their secrets in her grave.  
"—The maester-at-arms did! You always hit people more often that I—"  
"—I still do!"  
The smile which touched her lips flamed into laughter in her eyes. His sister's palms traced the planes of his face; a newer, sharper geometry of fatigue and famine; her eyes following in mock appraisal.  
"Now, I am afraid, you would look _quite_ ridiculous! Although I do wonder what my high shoes might do to such shapely legs…"  
They were entwined with hers, thighs bracketing his sister's while the backs of his legs brushed her own and her kneecaps pressed into the plaster.  
"No more ridiculous than you disappearing into my helm!" he laughed.  
He swatted at her fingers by reflex and caught them by the empty air above his stump. Her fingers left his face to pull his arm tightly around her shoulders. His jaw clenched to ward off the sudden trembling of his lip. She filled the gaping pause with the lightening-bolt flicker of lips against lips. Such chastity, as soft as he was inside her.  
"Come now, there must be one redeeming feature about my dress sense…"  
But the jibe draped heavily about her words instead of taking flight.  
"That…let's see…that it makes me want to rip off your dress all the faster?"  
With two hands it would have been off already, instead of winding silken chains about her ankles. Nonetheless, her laugh was genuine, as unexpected as the crooked twist of his own lips. Her teeth flashed in the evening light, pressing at the corner of his mouth, working along his jaw, biting at his earlobe. He willingly retreated to familiar territory.  
"What are you going to do to stave off the time when I have to put it on again?" she whispered.  
"I hope you had better lines prepared for Stannis, sweet sister."  
Something dangerously close to hurt flickered in her eyes. He nuzzled softly into her neck by way of truce.  
"Sleep with me," she breathed against his skin. "Don't you dare banish me to my cold, empty bed, not when I can warm yours."  
"Astonishing, I had marked success with the same line on Lady Stark."  
He stroked her hair, turning serious.  
"When have I ever abandoned you, sweet sister?"

He held her as best he could with only a single hand, grateful for the tightness of her legs about his hips and her arms entwined around his shoulders. He swayed uneasily across his unfamiliar quarters. In the bed-chamber Barristan Selmy's presence frowned upon him from every shadow.  
"I hope the sheets have been changed since Ser Grandfather slept here."  
"If it bothers you, sleep on me instead," his sister laughed.  
He had longed for the chance, once. Jaime recalled his first night in the Tower, bare quarters too large without his sister there to share his accomplishment; the small bed seemingly unwarmed by his body without his twin beside him.  
"Not nearly as cavernous as the royal bed, I do apologise."  
Despite that, the pale expanse of plain linen seemed more intimidating than the black and gold opulence of the royal silks.  
"Not nearly as uncomfortable, I hope!"  
The floor seemed to slide ever-so-slightly out from beneath his feet. Hastily he sat both of them on the bed. For a while there was only the surf. The sound of home, as much as the uniform thumping of their hearts.  
"I ought not have spoken so carelessly."  
With their foreheads pressed together so, Jaime tasted his sister's apology more than heard it.  
"I ought not have been so careless either, coming inside you. I never thought I would mourn Robert!" he laughed.  
But his mind would not be diverted. _Uncomfortable._ Their short-hand in the viper's nest of the court by day, transcribed in the rare evenings within the safety of her chambers: lying awake to Robert's snoring; smelling Robert's wine-soaked vomit over the rugs; sleeping pinned under Robert's sweaty, immobile bulk; fighting Robert's wild, inebriated rages; not fighting when years decayed them into Robert's torpid fumblings beneath her nightclothes; enduring Robert's dead she-wolf honoured loud enough for the Kingsguard outside to hear. Now only the worms ate at Robert instead of his obsessions and no Baratheon would sit on the Iron Throne ever again.

Cersei sprawled amongst the sheets, mourning the sudden void where her brother had been. Spent, admittedly; artless even when he had been hard—a measure of their shared desperation that such raw need had satisfied either of them—but unifying them nonetheless. Her confession to Ned Stark gnawed at her: _When he is inside me, I feel whole_. She stretched the length of the bed against the emptiness inside. _Have patience_ , she instructed herself. The queen knew the picture she presented, the last of the evening sun spinning her hair into flame-licked gold and the shadows smoothing the lines from her flesh. _A statue of the Maid breathed into life_ , her brother had called her that first time, while the pair of them drowned in the moonlight and the dull roar of the surf at the base of the cliffs and the taste of the salt spray on each other's skin. And he… No muscles carved with hammer and chisel could have matched her brother's beauty while they tainted his white cloak with her maid's blood.  
"No woman has ever lain in that bed."  
She lifted her head to examine the figure beside it. A familiar stance now, elegant lines straight-backed and motionless as any statue of the Warrior, albeit one varnished with sweat and grime. She smiled, reaching towards him. It was some minor victory that he took the hand she extended to him, a greater one when he pressed it to his lips.  
"Kingsguard have been executed for fornication before."  
"My dear sister, you know just how to encourage me," he remarked wryly. "Never in the White Sword Tower, however."  
"Never in three centuries? Not even Elia and—"  
His face silenced her. No wonder the white cloaks were sworn to celibacy, given the chance of them talking in their sleep! He would not sleep tonight, she would make certain. It was not enough to unmake him once and leave the steel and gold swimming in its own sweat. All her careful refashioning would be wasted if she could not fasten her new-forged blade into its hilt; if the sword-arm was not bound to a soul.  
"Even were I to recall a night when we dared to spend the entirety of it together—which I cannot, I admit!—you would not relent, would you?"  
The leonine mane swayed as he shook his head.  
"This is…different. Means something different," her brother ventured.  
 _Good_ , she thought. Were it not for her, Jaime would have swapped his white cloak for a black one. No-one else but she would have dared convince Robert to countermand the Lord Commander's wishes. Seventeen years she had waited to dismiss Selmy, to avenge her brother. What better way to cement the debt than to make him break the Lord Commander's vows which she had enabled him to swear?  
"Would it mean less if we were to couple on the Iron Throne?"  
The sharp heat of his breath splashed against her knuckles.  
"Just the two of us," she whispered. "The queen and her knight and that vast room so silent and empty."  
She watched greedily as he swallowed, followed the motion of his throat and found her own filled with smoke.  
"My clothes falling at your feet, before the steps to the throne. You would stand there and watch as I pleasured myself—I would _make_ you stand and watch. Until you couldn't bear it another second, the sight of my soft skin pressed against the swords and the blades drawing blood at the hand between my legs, until you climbed the steps and sank to your knees before me and tore off your helm and I let you kiss the blood from my hand."  
There was blood on his lips now, red where his tongue had worked open old wounds.  
"My fingers would be slick with your saliva when I curled them into your hair. I would drag your mouth to my cunt, drive you into the cold steel pricking at the flesh of your jaw. We would undress you together, then, our hands unbuckling your plate and I would begrudge every second as you pulled the mail and padding over your head. Your tongue, your lips—you would be so _warm_ as your mouth worked. You would leave me just on the precipice, both of us as naked as the day we came into this world together."  
She clawed at the sheets in her free hand, fighting the sight of him. Leaner than before, hungrier.  
"And then, then you would bend me over the arm of the throne and take me from behind, enemy swords biting at my breasts and my stomach and your legs and the length of you as you drove into me. You would fuck your sister the way you fight, Jaime."  
She watched him yearn. Watched his eyes; the tight set of his jaw and the loom of his body and the flushed length of his erection, distilled into the closest mirror to herself.  
"We'll be caught," Jaime uttered hoarsely.  
She had not remade him perfectly, not yet.

Cersei slid an arm around his waist, kissing the creases that marked the boundary between his legs and hips, pointedly avoiding the splendid view in-between. His legs gave way obediently. She tugged him down to kneel on the bed in front of her, smiling at the breath hissed between his clenched teeth.  
"Not if we are quiet," she breathed into his ear.  
"We will be caught," Jaime repeated. "My Sworn Brothers…"  
He had never been the cautious one before. While her palms charted the bruises over his back she could feel him trembling.  
"—Are with the King, and the Hand and the prince."  
Her brother traced her flesh with his fingertips, branding the curve of her arse and the soft skin between her thighs. _I will not beg._ Cersei twisted her hands into his hair. _Not the first unkept promise you made in this position, is it?_ sneered her conscience, even as the waves roared in her ears and her brother's body looked gilded in moonlight. _No secrets, sister?_ and she had laughed at him, asking how one soul could partition secrets into its two bodies.  
"I don't need all my fingers to count to seven, sweet sister."  
"Two dead. One in Dorne, too. Just us Jaime," she gasped. "Just us, alone until their watch ends."  
"Dorne?"  
She kissed him silent. Their daughter was a battle for another time. Then she would see how unyielding she had forged him. She would armour him with Tyrion's schemes and threats and arm him with the Small Council seat that was the Lord Commander's right. What could their wretched creature of a sibling do to match that? His mouth trailed off into the hollow between her breasts.  
"Lancel," she confessed abruptly.  
Jaime's teeth sank hard around her nipple.  
"Lancel," she repeated, "came nearly every night in your absence, Jaime."  
His teeth marked her other nipple harder still. Cersei let her eyes fall shut.  
"I hoped that the sweat he left on the sheets would smell of you, that when we kissed he would look at me with your eyes, that his mouth would taste like yours, that when I pinned his wrists to the bed he would fight, that I would be wet as if I were with you, that he would fuck me the way you fucked me."  
She sounded light-headed, even to herself. Had it really been two years since she had licked some Stark retainer's blood from his neck and trapped his fingers and his body underneath hers? Two years reliving that last coupling, when she had felt his muscles tremble from over-exertion, even while all her strength could barely restrain him as she ground him into her bed? But now he was home, and unspeakably beautiful all lighted from within with wildfire envy, and hers alone.  
"I needed someone, Jaime, I wanted you at my side and in my bed, I needed you, and you weren't there, even at Blackwater, Gods, I didn't want to sit caged and helpless, I wanted to be out there fighting, with you my soul could have fought and yours could have given my body the strength to be imprisoned in the Red Keep, and instead of the Kingsguard who deserted Joffrey your white cloak would have kept him safe."  
She found herself stroking his hair, accusations coming in whispers, her traitorous eyelids seeping tears. He began to lick the tears from her face. A half-fled memory cast ghostly, close-mouthed kisses along her cheekbones to dam the flood of weeping for their mother. She could not recall when she had first twisted her limbs about his in response, nor when his lips had parted to memorise her face inside and out with his tongue, knew only that the two epiphanies had been one and the same.  
"I sat on the Iron Throne and knew that when Stannis saw my body, the Stark boy would deliver your head and wondered if he would bury us together."  
Admitting defeat, she opened her eyes. She let hands fall from his face, her fingernails wet with the blood she had drawn from his scalp. On his knees, Jaime cast her in shadow.  
"Lancel," Jaime echoed wonderingly. "He doesn't deserve you. What has he ever done for you?"  
The truth pressed against her tongue. Surely she did not have to say it.

Jaime retreated to sit on his heels. For all his composed stature, disquiet and envy and a peculiar sense of longing shook his voice uncontrollably.  
"How were his pleas worth honouring when mine were not?"  
"You would never have survived killing two kings!" his sister pleaded, "I had to force him, bribe him—Do you imagine that I want your pity?" she snapped.  
"Pity? Is that what one calls murder now?"  
 _Calm,_ demanded what little self-discipline remained to him. He no longer cared who heard.  
"So you _haven't_ forgotten how to fight with your left hand?"  
"Lancel is barely worth fighting," he growled. "If I ever find him inside you, I will slit his throat."  
"Do you imagine that he crawls on top of me and does whatever he pleases?"  
The flush on his sister's cheeks might have been shame or arousal, or both. The thought was as pleasant and warming as the mulled wine he had tasted on her breath. He reached for her again.  
"Does it matter if I stab him in the back or the belly? At least he would have something beautiful to admire while the life seeped from him."  
 _A slow death._ He had the luxury of tinting his world in such simple colours: pale, worthless Lancel had taken what Jaime in his absence could not; why was irrelevant, when her shining knight had the power to open his rival's throat and splash her with crimson to mark her as his. A beautiful sight indeed, the pair of them flawless and gleaming in gold and ivory, every movement painting their skin with Lancel's blood while they fucked.  
"You promised, Jaime. You promised me once, that you would kill everyone who prevented us from being together."  
The sudden twist of his fingers inside her replied for him. _I remember._ She cried out, an unexpected litany of _please, please, please._  
Jaime laughed, gloriously drunk on her. Their faces no longer formed a perfect tessellation when he whispered in his sister's ear.  
"I am sworn to obey the queen, am I not?"  
 _And ward her, even from herself._ Besieged by longing and envy and want though his mind might be, it had not fallen completely.  
"Her Grace's orders are a little vague for my liking."  
His tongue traced the shell of her ear, her neck, her collarbone. Even the slightest of her responses was familiar, welcoming him home with ruthless tugs at his heart.  
"Please, please, please what? Fuck you? Kill Lancel? Kill Margery the doe-eyed whore? Permit you to tie me to this bed and tease me until I beg you to suck my cock? Sit on the Iron Throne and slash your dress from your shoulders and kiss your cunt until you scream?"  
He tasted her pulse speeding more with every word. Her teeth sank into his collarbone.  
"Swear," she whispered. "Swear that you will never desert me, never again, that you will always be at my side when I need you."  
The conjunction of their bodies pledged for him.

Cersei allowed herself to fall back against the sheets. The ferocious pace her twin set would not last as she needed it, until he could never see the bed without his mind tracing her lines onto it, nor sleep alone without stroking himself and thinking of her. That much was only fair, after all the nights she had spent in her cold, empty bed with only his cloak for warmth. The configuration of their bodies was awkward, with him still on his knees and her legs encircling his hips and her nails digging into his thighs in frustration. She clung to that shard of unfamiliarity amongst his sure thrusts and the molten synchronicity of their bodies.  
"Please," came the breathless cry to mirror her own. "I need…I want…Cersei, sister…"  
"No," she said.  
Their arms would around each other and she pulled him down to lean on his elbows and cradle her head with his fingers and press his forehead to hers. This way she could almost forget what he had lost.  
"No," she repeated.  
Her voice cracked. She had needed to make him burn for her; had somehow thrown herself into the forge alongside him. They fit too perfectly like this, one mind and body instead of two, her will so easily crushed by the metamorphosis. She gripped his balls until he cried out. _He must break, he must break_ , her mind cried so loud that she wondered that he did not hear, but the only words her mouth could form were dragged into his lungs by their kisses. He would take everything, if he had the chance, until nothing was his or hers, only theirs. Their mouths parted, hers for air and his for entreaty.  
"No, no, I'll not have you beg. Not to anyone. My brother, my brave brother."  
"Not even to you, sister?"  
 _Not if you keep your promise._ She laughed, flinging herself into the abyss, forcing him to follow.

She was gone when he woke. He knew: he had no need to strain to hear her breathing; to open his eyes, longing to see his reflection; to reach for her, hoping to trace the lines of his own body. Yet he did. No strand of hair lingered on the pillows, although his own passed for her length now; no lavender scent obscured the smell of him, of them; however much of her blood he had drawn would pass as his own. The emptiness made him smile: at least one of them was careful. Yet he still twisted the sheets around himself as if the shadows she might have left clinging there could be wound about him as solidly as her own flesh.  
"Fool," he murmured to himself.  
Everything hurt. Gods be good, she hadn't exhausted him like this since before he had joined the Kingsguard! Mercifully, his mind ventured none of Uncle Gerion's commentary. He shook his head, stretching, limping for the door. He picked the wrong door at first, chuckling that no scandalised squire loitered in the solar to see Jaime Lannister and his sword in all its glory. _It would serve him right, being that eager to start working._ Even in the bathing room, he caught sight of his vapid grin in the ill-polished mirror along one wall. How could he smile, when his reflection had a stump in place of a hand?

He sank into the bath with a sigh of pleasure, eyes closed. She could not have left too long ago, for the bath was tepid in defiance of the autumnal edge to the cold, stone room. Dripping, he clambered out and splashed water over the small brazier. A fountain of steam gushed from the coals, warming the air, if not the water; a far cry from the sophisticated Lann's Screws honeycombing the Rock, drawing water uphill through countless secret passageways. They had never found any of them, Jaime recalled. Nor had Tyrion, which was some consolation. Impatiently he pushed away the nostalgia for home.  
"Did I not exchange it willingly for my cloak?" he asked his washing pumice.  
He scraped vigorously, ignoring the logic that it had last touched his sister's skin. Had it left any of her untouched? Had it traced the hollows of her neck where his fingers had curled? Slipped between her thighs, where her own fingers had replaced the memory of his while he tightened his grip to slay the frustrated cries in her throat? He had never understood why Cersei cared to dance with the Stranger when she had her twin instead—nor if she knew how it unmade him so, the trust blossoming into the dark expanse of her pupils. Suddenly he was glad of the cold water.  
"I am jealous of a rock," he laughed.  
He flung the offending pumice at the opposite end of the bath. It sailed the requisite ten feet—diagonally, alas!—and landed on the bottom of the bath with a dull _thunk_. The coals hissed their derision in a fountain of steam. Jaime sighed. It had been too much to hope that they might have shared a bath for the first time since the Rock. The yearning glowed warm in his head; the laugher, the softness of her hand, the taste of the sea on her cheek. Had the light always been so different at Casterly Rock than King's Landing; or had it been they who had changed, burning more brightly at home? Was it this suffocating intrigue than dulled her lustre and strangled the laughter in her throat, even as it made her cut sharper and deeper and deadlier? He stared at the ripples dancing across the white ceiling. His thoughts moved as sluggishly as the clouds of steam refracting the sunlight in the room. The slick marble of the bath's edge was an inviting pillow. How could he possibly have slept with her beside him? _To sleep, perchance to dream_ ; or to wake, to find that his sister had dissolved on his tongue like the most fragile spun sugar, into the eternal nightmare of his dark cell. Instead he had memorised her curves with his hand, with his lips, with that dread which she never would have shared. _No threat of illusion for her. My sweet sister would never have imagined me to be so weak._ Until she had woken, false complaints about his wicked tongue dripping from her lips. She had proven the wickedness of her own soon after, fingers sure on his hips while his remaining hand stroked her hair. There had been no awkwardness posed by his stump or his frailty or the swiftness of his coming; no constraint between them, as ever. Dawn had found Cersei with her cheek pressed against his heart, the weight of her body on his torso, its form surely half-familiar from the womb; and Jaime asleep with his arms raised in surrender. 


	2. Einsam in truben Tagen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every princess requires a gallant knight to protect her. But who is there to protect them from each other? 
> 
> The Half-Year Queen and the Kingmaker take the opening steps in the Dance of the Dragons.

ELSA | ELSA  
---|---  
Einsam in trüben Tagen  
hab ich zu Gott gefleht,  
des Herzens tiefstes Klagen  
ergoss ich im Gebet. -  
Da drang aus meinem Stöhnen  
ein Laut so klagevoll,  
der zu gewalt'gem Tönen  
weit in die Lüfte schwoll: -  
Ich hört ihn fernhin hallen,  
bis kaum mein Ohr er traf;  
mein Aug ist zugefallen,  
ich sank in süssen Schlaf.   
  
|  Lonely, in troubled days  
I prayed to the Lord,  
my most heartfelt grief  
I poured out in prayer.  
And from my groans  
there issued a plaintive sound  
that grew into a mighteous roar  
as it echoed through the skies:  
I listened as it receded into the distance  
until my ear could scarce hear it;  
my eyes closed  
and I fell into a deep sleep.  
  
  
In Lichter Waffen Scheine  
ein Ritter nahte da,  
so tugendlicher Reine  
ich keinen noch ersah:  
Ein golden Horn zur Hüften,  
gelehnet auf sein Schwert, -  
so trat er aus den Lüften  
zu mir, der Recke wert;  
mit züchtigem Gebaren  
gab Tröstung er mir ein; -  
des Ritters will ich wahren,  
er soll mein Streiter sein!  |  In splendid, shining armour  
a knight approached,  
a man of such pure virtue  
as I had never seen before:  
a golden horn at his side,  
leaning on a sword -  
thus he appeared to me  
from nowhere, this warrior true;  
with kindly gestures  
he gave me comfort;  
I will wait for the knight,  
he shall be my champion!   
  
"Eleven counts of treason," he groaned.  
It was hardly a promising thought with which to start the day. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard winced at the sunlight, shifting out of its range across the bed. The four-poster would have slept him and both his sisters when he was growing up, yet somehow he had managed to fidget to within an inch of falling out. He untangled his legs from the tenacious grasp of the sheets, disturbing his bed-fellow.  
"Shall we try for a twelfth, my white knight?"  
How could she smile? Viserys's precious daughter might not lose her head, yet she would doubtless lose her throne. The king could hardly be content with banishing her to her room and her lover to exile, not for a second time. Or had she merely been caught kissing her uncle and not abed with him? Ser Arryk had said…But he couldn't care what his Sworn Brother had reported, not when his princess was pressing each knuckle of his sword-hand against that perfect, wicked curl of lips before resting her soft, flushed cheek against his fingers.  
"I thought it was a dream," he croaked.  
Laughter spilled from the back of her throat. They had laughed often, he recalled dimly, provided that their mouths were unoccupied by more pressing matters. She had especially buried her head into his shoulder in a fit of giggles— _what_ had he said, something about dragons mating on all fours?—yet the crown princess had rolled onto her hands and knees nonetheless, mirth turning to moans as he fumbled into her and somehow found the angles _just so_ …  
"Does my sworn shield often dream of taking my maidenhead?" she murmured.  
She quirked an eyebrow. Such a flawless mirror of her prince Uncle's actions unnerved him.  
"How could I? I've never had…"  
The half-confession lodged in his throat. _Wanted_ , he ought to have said, _I've never wanted a woman, for all that they desire me_. House Corbray had been an impossibly fine match for a Cole, yet Lord Sumner's only daughter had been smitten by the first-born son of a fourth-rate House: even now the flowers arrived from the Vale every nameday—white ones, for his cloak—accompanied by a letter of sincerest inconsolation. _My lord husband_ , Lynne wrote in dismay instead of ink. Criston had never asked for his name. He had fled to King's Landing at the news of his betrothal, to the greatest tourney in the Seven Kingdoms. The new-made knight had felled his opponents like a starved outlaw butchering game, desperate for his House to sup on glory instead of scorn. And so he had gained a cloak and lost his bride.  
"…I swore a vow," he finished helplessly.  
That much was true, at least. He had donned armour that was no protection against the slings and arrows of court gossip; Ser Ryam Redwyne himself had fastened the white cloak around his shoulders, one that warmed him little against the cold envy of the Red Keep's garrison; even the Gods to whom he had made his oaths, they had not lifted their curse in return.  
"You swore rather often last night," his charge mocked.  
Her voice was warm. Or was that the weight of her cheek against his thigh as she nestled closer? Her hair pooled like molten white gold into the void between his crossed legs. His newly-freed fingers clawed at the pillow she had abandoned. _One does not touch the blood royal without permission. Do not take her arm, do not kiss her hand, make no intrusion upon her space without Her Grace's leave._ That had been the second lesson, from the lips of the king himself. The first, of course, had been to ward his little princess. Nothing had seemed easier, when his charge had been shorter than the height of his oaken shield. His Grace had scooped her up in his arms and set her upon the Small Council chairs himself, until she grew tall enough to sit gracefully. She had begged his counsel on how to sit motionless during the long hours of bureaucratic tedium. He had taught her to skip stones on every lonely beach on the coast, where the clasp of his hand in hers might be an unobserved breach of decorum. Her crimson-and-black beribboned pigtails had swung about her head every time she cast, laughing at each victory. (He had let her win, of course. What else was he to do?) Now the stones with which they played were the ones between his legs. Now she sat perfectly poised on his cock while he begged her in vain to move her hips, enthralled by the sight of her unbound hair cascading across her breasts.  
A decade of faithful service had come to this. Whom to despise more: himself or the gods who had cursed him so?  
"Criston?"  
Her Grace was under no such restrictions about his person. She was free to trace his stubble, nails raking along his jaw. She tilted his face to meet her eyes. Violet eyes, the mark of the dragonlords of old Valyria, of something more then a mere mortal; deep and dark enough for him to drowm.  
"Criston…" her voice tremored. "My white knight, I fear lest I not please you. What is it that I've said?"  
Suddenly she was the fragile girl he had comforted in the dark, whether she woke screaming of her mother's death or tossed in the pains of her moon blood. Each time, she had removed his gauntlets that he might hold her hand, or that she might press his warm fingers against her womb until the heat subsided the pain. Before he stole back to his post, he would press a kiss to her forehead.  
"It's nothing you've said, Your Grace."  
He ought never to have taken the liberty of comforting her. His kisses would never have strayed to her eyelids, nor to her tear-stained cheekbones, nor—just once—to the rage-twisted corners of her mouth. _I will not marry him! This Velaryon is a tourney horse, not a seahorse—one on which every knight in King's Landing has had a ride!_ She had collapsed in fury against his breastplate. _Won't you kill him for me?_ He had kissed her instead.  
"Something I've done, then? Tell me the truth!" she snapped.  
What was he supposed to say? _Please, Your Grace, it hurts me to look upon you. The sight makes my limbs weak and my cock ache and my heart feel as though you've ripped it whole from my chest._ She moved to scramble up to sit beside him. Without thought, his hand pinned the sheets against her body. The word burst from his lips without thinking.  
"No."  
He could not bear the thought of dishonouring her again.  
"No, you refuse to speak honestly?" she asked.  
Disbelief tinged her reply, a rising inflection that could spiral so easily into scorn. She had found him updating the White Book and the mad scheme had spilled from his lips before he could stop himself. _Do you truly propose to run away to Pentos? The Kingsguard does not flee!_  
"No, I don't please you?" she continued.  
The heir to the Iron Throne rolled from her side onto her belly, hands digging into his hips while her mouth sought his cock.  
"No, Your Grace, please…" he whispered.  
Then her tongue dripped wildfire between his legs and all he could do was moan. He had fallen at her feet, confessed his love, kissed the hem of her dress. His princess had flicked her skirts away in disgust. _Are you so craven, Lord Commander?_ The motion had bared her ankles. In desperation, he had kissed them too. _Let me take you to safety! What else can you want of your white shield, my love?_ She had inched the Myrish lace up her pale legs—mourning black, dark and wide as her eyes—licking her lips. _More_ , she had whispered. His kisses had followed the hem, until it was bunched up at her hips and she was bent backwards over the Kingsguard table, filling his ears with her cries and his mouth with her cunt. He shuddered with desire.  
When he came to, he found her crawled into his lap, kissing his eyelids.  
"I fear lest you please me too much, Your Grace."  
"Why do you fear? Your vows say nothing of this, my white knight," she admonished.  
She stroked his cheek. He could feel her trembling.  
"My children will never call you Father. And I am to be married today, but not to you."  
He twisted up to retrieve his white cloak from where it had tangled on the headboard. Even as he wrapped it around them both, he was damned, dishonoured, slain. 


End file.
